[RichardHBB]

The same store where I got my Z10 last year. Not a single Blackberry in stock. Store guy says "Well they weren't our best seller" - well that's not a surprise, but somehow I imagine they stock a lot of things that aren't exactly flying off the shelves.

I was trying to see if they had a Q10 in stock for my girlfriend to try, so I can get her off her old Samsung feature phone that has a very Blackberry-ish QWERTY keyboard. Was interested to see if she liked the Q10 better or the Z10 better.

After checking AT&T's site, not a single one of their stores in this very large city has a Q10 in stock. Some have Z10's, but no Q's...

Guy offered to have it shipped direct. Doesn't help at all when someone wants to try it first. FAIL

Richard

[jaydee5799]

This is the problem at so many of the carrier stores. They can't stock what they can't sell. Unfortunately for us. We have to order online and return in 30 days

[blueyestm]

For At&T you only have 14 days to return and that includes all the shipping for the device too.

[donnation]

None of our stores have any either. Was told they are no longer carrying BB.

[SK122387]

This is getting so crazy. BlackBerry sells them directly, but I know a lot of people can't afford to spend $549 +tax outright.

Maybe they need some program where you put money down and make payments. I know they have a PayPal option, with Bill Me Later, which is of course tied to a credit check.

Any kind of payment arrangement through BlackBerry would mean there would need to be some other company or service brought into the mix, to make sure people pay or whatever, similar to Barclay's arrangement with Apple, where you apply and actually get a Barclay's credit card in the amount of the item you're purchasing from Apple.

But this kind of program looks increasingly necessary, as everyday I read stories of stores no longer stocking BlackBerry. BlackBerry should get serious about selling directly to customers, making it easy and affordable to get a BlackBerry. Right now it is easy (well for the Z10 and Q10) through BlackBerry, but it's definitely not affordable for some to drop almost $600 for a phone at full retail (Q10).

[brianwiebe]

This has been very deliberate by AT&T I believe. When I was considering which BB10 to get, none of the AT&T stores I went to had a functioning demo, and more than once the sales person dismissed BlackBerry immediately. I purchased over the phone but the sales rep acted as though she had never heard of the BB10's, and said, "I'm not seeing any blackberry in my system." I had to insist until she "found it" in inventory. So discouraging for a BlackBerry customer. This z10 is such a great phone. I love it.

Posted via CB10

[bbq10l]

Interesting. I was at Verizon in a very large city where I bought my q10. They had the z10 on display but no more q10s. I wonder if is specific to the q or if they just sold out or returned them and didn't order more but still have some z10s in stock.

Posted via CB10

[RichardHBB]

Not specific to the Q10, what I'm saying is this store had NO Blackberry whatsoever. None on display, none in stock, regardless of model. Then I jumped on AT&T's website to see if any store in town had the Q10 in stock and none did.

Any of them can have one direct-shipped to me but that helps zero with someone wanting to try before buying, which is about the only reason to ever go into a store in the first place. Do they not realize that with the direct ship option they are rendering themselves obsolete? (the stores and their personnel)

Richard

[Troy Tiscareno]

Do they not realize that with the direct ship option they are rendering themselves obsolete? (the stores and their personnel)

No, for 99+% of their customers, they are just rendering BlackBerry obsolete, because nearly all customers will buy something they have in-stock in the store. You aren't in the mainstream here - you are an outlier, and a rare one (someone who will ONLY consider BB). Sure, they might lose you as a customer, but the loss of you isn't going to hurt them nearly as bad as their support of BB hurt them in 2013, with tons of returns and very few sales to generate new contracts.

They have access to their numbers, and clearly they've decided that they'll make more money without BB than with BB. Most BB users will simply convert, and a few will buy a BB phone direct and continue to use their network. Only a tiny, tiny number will leave the carrier over this, so the carrier wins.

[RichardHBB]

I both agree, and disagree. I know I'm in the minority. However, the push to direct-ship items IS about eliminating the sales force. I'm sure many grocery store clerks didn't fear the self-checkout aisle at first. Now, my local Kroger's has SIX, recently upgraded from four, and they're quite snazzy with their turntable bag holders. Yesterday, I bought a mattress at Ikea and paid for it at the self-serve register. A mattress.

Who the hell needs a salesperson for a phone? Nobody, really...

Richard

[Troy Tiscareno]

I know I'm in the minority.

<snip>

Who the hell needs a salesperson for a phone? Nobody, really...

A large majority of cell phone customers would disagree with you. Most people want to try out new phones before picking one, and don't want to have to activate their new phone themselves, nor do they want to have to deal with things like transferring their data from one phone to the other, which is something that many people STILL need to do because they aren't using cloud services.

You are a technical guy. So am I, so I get where you are coming from, but to most people, a smartphone is practically magic - they don't really understand them, and they certainly don't want to have to figure out how to put SIMs in them, or activate them on the network, or set up their own email accounts on them. For many, that's a MAJOR hassle and source of confusion, and those people very much need a salesperson to help them. Why do you think such a huge percentage of phones are sold in carrier stores?

[beantownwindsorite]

Of course BlackBerry can't sell phones. The carriers not only do not promote BlackBerry products like they do other manufacturers', they discourage folks from buying them. TH was out of his league.

Posted via CB10

[anon(153966)]

Same issue in Atlanta, GA...

[RichardHBB]

OK so to update this sorry tale, time came to get my g/f the new phone so I used AT&T's site to find stores that showed Z10's in stock. (She said she didn't care about a physical keyboard so the Q10 was no longer a factor.) Company-owned stores have 'em so it was just a few more miles and the rep didn't bat an eye, though she did say "Let me see if we even have any" but returned shortly with the phone. No eye-rolling, no questioning the choice, no suggesting other alternatives. So that's a positive thing.

Then again, no Blackberry phones on display at all, in the enormous store with everything else on display, but that wasn't really a big surprise.

The important part though - got her set up on the Z10 and she's really digging it so far and has figured a few things out on it that I haven't even got into yet. We did end up pulling the Otterbox off it today, and I spared her the "told you so" since I had warned her from the start she was going to hate it. Made it nearly impossible to swipe up.

Richard

[TgeekB]

Any product that is not popular is going to be harder to find. You can't expect stores to stock any product that won't sell. Retail space is expensive.

Posted via my Nexus 10.

[RichardHBB]

There are 7 AT&T company-owned stores in my area that stock the Z10. My original post is that the -nearest- AT&T store (obviously not company-owned, but is branded AT&T on the sign) no longer stocks it, though it is the store I got my original Z10 from when they came out.

So in the end, it took driving 6 miles instead of 4. A tragedy.

Richard

[454vette]

My wife and I got Z10's last Feb /13 when they 1st came out. My wife had an old Samsung flip and I had retired a year earlier, having turned in my company BB. So I had been phoneless for over a year, waiting to see what BlackBerry was going to come out with. I ordered two Z10's over the phone from our carrier, a white and a black. The phone experience went extremely well. The carrier rep was very helpful and I was quite impressed. The phones arrived soon after. We did our own set up and I had to only make one call when I made an error, getting one phone set up, again the phone rep walked me thru' the fix. My wife and I the had to go thru' learning how to setup and use the phone. My wife is a little tech phobia. I told her to just learn one or two things a day instead of being over whelmed. There is a learning curve when going from an old flip to a smart phone for someone who just answered a call or made only phone calls on a phone. A year later we are very happy with our smartphones. My wife has her phone constantly with her and is always BBM to our children, grandchildren or her friends in and out of the country. I agree it is nice to go in a store and handle the phone first. On the other hand I think it would have spooked my wife a bit. I had researched on line various phones, so I was confident in my selection when I made the call and do not regret it.

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